Art activity: Skits

Objective
Students act out challenges, find solutions, and practice reminders regarding handwashing with soap in a nonthreatening and fun environment.

Notes on all art activities: Skits, posters and songs.
The teacher might assign students to one of skits, posters or songs, or let students choose which they preferred. These art activities are possible for each unit, so you can decide which activity best matches each unit, or just rotate among them.

If students create skits, songs and/or posters that are amusing and present the health messages well, you can share the student projects with the community at village meetings, market days, etc. These presentations could be for all the projects or for only the best student projects.

If this manual is being used in a group of groups or classrooms, it is useful to think about a competition for best skit, poster or song (within age groups).

Time
20 minutes + 5 minutes per group to present

What You Need

 * None required.
 * Optionally: props to represent a latrine and an eating area, soap, fake food, etc.


 * For a fancier show, search for props like clothes suited to the different characters.

Activity
Divide students into small groups and ask each group to create a skit about handwashing.

Picking the scenario
You can allow students to make up skits on their own with no guidance, or you can provide them with a scenario or situation to act out.

If they pick the scenario, explain:
 * Put events from your daily life at home and in school into the show: 

​If you pick the scenario, here are some possibilities. For younger students, you should select a simple topic.
 * What happens at home, in school, with friends related to handwashing? 
 * What are the dangers and problems related to handwashing? 
 * What will happen if the problems cannot be solved?
 * Option for more drama: There has to be a villain and a hero.
 * 1) Parts of: King Akbar writes a Law
 * 2) [pure mime] Someone leaves the “latrine” [on stage] with glitter on his or her hands. The actor then serves food to others, and the audience sees the glitter spread.


 * 1) (Adapted from a public service announcement; I need to find the source.)
 * 2) <p style="margin-bottom:0in">(Can be integrated with other scenarios.)
 * 3) <p style="margin-bottom:0in">An older relative does not understand why it is important to wash hands prior to eating, as long as the hands look clean. The younger children in the family keep getting sick, but everyone is afraid to correct the older relative. Will a brave relative step up and explain handwashing? If so, what happens to the children?
 * 4) <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Anna is engaged to marry Joseph. Anna’s parents invite Joseph’s parents over to discuss the wedding. Joseph’s parents see that Anna does not wash hands before preparing food for them. They are thinking of calling off the wedding.
 * 5) <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Some students act as germs on giant hands. They hear the kid who owns these hands (a voice off stage) say he won’t wash hands. How do they react? Then someone reminds the kid, so he decides to wash hands. What happens when soap arrives? (Soap can be other actors.)
 * 6) <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Children in a community keep getting diarrhea. When they are all healthy, for a moment, they get together and try to solve the mystery of why. What will they discover is the cause? What will they decide to do?
 * 7) <p style="margin-bottom:0in">You see a friend leave the latrine, but she forgets to wash hands with soap.


 * 1) <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Option: Other actors could be gross germs she leaves behind on everything she touches.
 * 2) <p style="margin-bottom:0in">A new kid comes to town and does not know that it is important to wash hands before eating. Everyone is mean to him, and he does not know why.
 * 3) <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Some of the older kids make fun of a younger kid for being a teachers’ pet because he always washes hands with soap after leaving the latrine.
 * 4) <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Two teenage girls at a dance think a boy is cute. Then they see him coming out of the latrine after pooping – and not washing hands with soap. Now he is coming over to ask one of them to dance. What will they say to each other about him? To him?
 * 5) <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Big brother or sister teaches a toddler to wash hand with soap.
 * 6) <p style="margin-bottom:0in">More generally, skits can involve|1

Preparation
 * 1) <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Acceptance of others
 * 2) <p style="margin-bottom:0in">How family members get along
 * 3) <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Physical growth (especially size)
 * 4) <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Fear of the unknown

<p style="text-indent:0.5in;margin-bottom:0in">Explain:
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Put yourself into the scene and think, speak, and act as if the situation were happening to you in real life. 
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Your group has five minutes to decide 


 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">What are the characters in the story?
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Who can play which role?
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">The attitudes of each character, how that person behaves and thinks 
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Where the scene takes place
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">The first and last sentences of the skit plus one idea of what happens in the middle


 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">You do not need to decide what each actor says. 
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Instead, during the performance you should decide how your character would reply to what others say.

Puppet show
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">A puppet show can be a fun alternative to a skit.
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Almost every material can be used to build a puppet, for example boxes, cans, bottles, leaves, clothes. Suggestion: Look at your hands and make a drawing of them. Then exchange your drawings with a friend and convert the drawings into characters, with eyes, mouth, hair, glasses. Cut out the drawings, glue it to a stick ... and we have a puppet! You can also build a stage, so that the spectators only see the puppets.
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">To give life to our puppets, practice in groups of three or four. Move the puppets in different ways: walk, move slowly, fly, crawl, crouch, embrace, fall forward, backward, sit, talk to the public, talk to the puppets.

Performances
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">Students can perform the skit or puppet show many places:
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">for the class
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">for other classes in the school
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">If the students would feel honored, for the teachers and/or principal
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">at a parents’ meeting (if parents would come), village meeting, market day, etc.
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">at a multi-class or multi-school contest
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Option: Take video of any skit and post to YouTube.

<p style="margin-bottom:0in">
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0in">Please email me ([mailto:Levine@haas.berkeley.edu Levine@haas.berkeley.edu] ) with a description of the skit and I will link to the video.